King of Jordan warns against ‘enforcing’ Gaza peace deal
King Abdullah says Arab nations will resist ‘running around Gaza on patrol with weapons’, amid US efforts to assemble a 5000-strong international force.
King Abdullah of Jordan has said that Arab states would object to “enforcing” a ceasefire in Gaza, as Washington struggles to assemble a 5000-strong international force in the territory.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said he hoped a force could be deployed as quickly as possible, as part of President Trump’s peace plan that ended the war in Gaza.
Arab countries, however, have questioned the proposed role of international troops in the Strip as they would not want to be perceived as occupiers working with the Israeli military, which has only partially withdrawn from the territory.
“What is the mandate of security forces inside of Gaza? And we hope that it is peacekeeping, because if it’s peace enforcing, nobody will want to touch that,” Abdullah said in an interview with BBC Panorama.
The king made the distinction between sending troops from Jordan to support Palestinian law enforcement, and sending troops to police the Strip themselves.
“Peacekeeping is that you’re sitting there supporting the local police force, the Palestinians, which Jordan and Egypt are willing to train in large numbers, but that takes time,” he said. If we’re running around Gaza on patrol with weapons, that’s not a situation that any country would like to get involved in.”
Hamas, the Islamist group that ruled Gaza and launched the war against Israel in 2023, was meant to cede power and eventually disarm under the ceasefire terms. The group has said that it would relinquish control to a government of technocrats, but it has violently cracked down on opponents and ruled out giving up its weapons.
This could set the stage for a confrontation between Hamas and international soldiers, something Arab governments would want to avoid.
The plan also faces other hurdles: the governments of Arab and Muslim states that are expected to contribute the bulk of soldiers have demanded that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises some autonomy in the West Bank, play a role in Gaza.
Israel, however, has ruled out allowing the PA back into Gaza. Israel has also been reported to have objected to Turkish troops being part of the international force.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said on Sunday that Israel would determine which countries would be allowed to participate in the force, saying the US had agreed to grant Israel veto power on the force’s membership.
The US will not be sending troops as part of the force, but it is leading a co-ordination cell in Israel that includes British and Arab advisers.
The Times
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